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The SRTF Delivers Wheat Hessian Sacks for a Food Security Project in the South of Syria

Jordan – Wednesday, 13 December 2017 - The SRTF Management Unit (MU) delivered 46.000 hessian sacks to the Implementing Entity (IE), the Syrian Public Establishment for Grains (SPEG), of its “Support and Inputs for the Food Security Sector (South)” project today. According to MU’s Programme Section, this is the last shipment of a total of 750,000 hessian sacks imported under this project. The delivery took place at a zero point on the Jordanian-Syrian border in coordination with the Jordanian authorities.

The delivered goods will help Syrian farmers better store and transport their wheat harvests, allowing the IE to easily purchase and use locally grown wheat for flour production by milling plants. The produced flour is then distributed among local bakeries for bread production. According to a joint FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission (CFSAM) to Syria conducted last May, “the 2017 wheat harvest stood at about 1.8 million tones, some 12 percent more than last year’s record low harvest; but this is still much less than half of the pre-conflict average of 4.1 million tones (2002-2011).” The slight increase in production was attributed to better rainfall and some local improvements in civil security, which allowed for a larger share of the planted area to be harvested. However, many constraints are still preventing a return to normal levels of projection, some of which are attributed to shortages of production inputs.

At a total cost of EUR 6.1 million, the project aims to ensure a greater availability of cereals, thus, contributing to better levels of food security in the project targeted areas within Dar’a and Quneitra Governorates.

In this context, the project is supporting a three-pronged approach followed by the IE (SPEG) to meet the challenge of increasing food availability in the two governorates. The approach includes, importation of soft wheat to mixed with local hard wheat for the production of Syrian bread, importation of inputs to protect locally produced wheat and installation of additional flourmills to ensure timely supply of four to bakeries.